The present invention relates to a method for the production of mincemeat by the comminution of meat of muscles of a slaughtered animal. According to estimates about 25% of all meat is sold as mincemeat.
The production of mincemeat is subject to various statutory basic conditions in different countries. Thus in Germany there is a provision in the Mincemeat Regulations (Hackfleischverordnung) that beef mincemeat may only contain a maximum of 20% fat and one portion may only come from the front quarter of a single animal, only certain parts of the meat being allowed. Mincemeat from refrigerated meat is presently only manufactured after the end of rigor mortis in the meat, which has matured by the degrading of energy-rich phosphates and after refrigerating, ripening, storage and shipping will be in a hygienically deteriorated condition. Fresh mincemeat may only be sold on the day it is produced and frozen mincemeat may not be sold later than three months after its production.
However in practice meat undergoes a substantial reduction in quality even prior to further processing to produce mincemeat. If mincemeat is produced by the butcher, the slaughtered animal will firstly have hung a few days in the cold store prior to being shipped and dismembered and in the butcher's store it will be handled a number of times on putting it in and taking it out of the cold store. Every morning a portion of the meat will be ground, the mincing machine accepting lumps of meat of the order of 4 to 5 cm in diameter. It is clear that the meat will be grasped in the hand many times over and will become microbiologically contaminated to a greater and greater extent in the course of time so that its condition will deteriorate.
In the case of mincemeat production in the retail food trade the meat is usually shipped in quarters from the slaughterhouse and dismembered and comminuted prior to sale, or such dismembering with and without packaging occurs on the slaughtering premises or as an additional stage in the trade in special purpose cutting up and packaging units, which pass on the meat to the retailer in a dismembered condition. At the retailer the packages are opened or the unpacked meat is cut into lumps in accordance with the size of the grinding machine and put in it. In the packaged and more particularly in the vacuum packaged condition the meat looses much juice, in which, despite cold storage, many bacteria accumulate. It is here again that microbiological contamination constitutes a substantial problem.
For the production of freeze-dried meat, which is suitable for the manufacture of certain types of boiling sausage there has been a proposal, see the German patent publication 3,107,576 A, to process meat still at slaughtering temperature even prior to the onset of rigor mortis, which is retarded by further salting the all-lean meat. Such salting however is responsible for a seepage of protein and to a lubricating effect, which renders the product unsuitable for mincemeat production.
In conjunction with the production of mincemeat there has been a further proposal, see Patent Abstracts of Japan 58-101641 (A), to comminute meat in a refrigerated condition at -2.degree. C. to -10.degree. C. and then to extrude it as a product which is in practice mostly sold as an animal feedstuff. The problems in conjunction with improving quality of mincemeat may not be dealt with by these technologies.